Farm Sanctuary’s Compassionate Communities Campaign will be hitting the road this fall, traveling to eleven major cities to help kick off the campaign. In each city we’ll be holding a dinner or lunch, a workshop on improving your advocacy skills, and local veg outreach events. If you live in or near one of these cities, please join us! For details, email: firstname.lastname@example.org.
This week, a video blog post takes a data-based look at the impacts of farm animal welfare reforms. The powerpoint is excerpted from a plenary presentation given at the Animal Rights 2012 national conference.
Data Point 1: Welfare reforms reduce suffering and provide immediate good for animals
Note: the following white papers review the current research and cite dozens of peer-reviewed studies on the welfare of animals in different housing systems.
Sumner, D. A., et al. (2011, January). Economic and market issues on the sustainability of egg production in the United States: Analysis of alternative production systems. Poultry Science 90(1): 241-250. doi: 10.3382/ps.2010-00822. Retrieved from http://www.poultryscience.org/docs/PS_822.pdf
Note: while not mentioned in the video, the above study concludes that banning cages for egg-laying hens in the U.S. would reduce the number of hens raised (anywhere) for U.S. egg consumption by about 3%, meaning 8 million less hens would be raised and killed for egg consumption.
Data Point 4: Media coverage of animal welfare issues causes people to eat less meat